Hawaii CPA License Reinstatement: What a Lapsed License Costs

Board's own fee page: $204 to restore a lapsed individual license, vs. $152 for on-time renewal. Firm permit-to-practice restoration is separate and higher ($360 entity / $128 sole proprietor).

• HAR §16-71-35 requires making up any CPE deficiency from the standard 80-hour biennial requirement before the Board approves the permit to practice -- completion of an existing shortfall, not an additional penalty on top of the normal requirement. That 80 hours must include at least 4 hours in ethics or professional conduct (§16-71-33(b)), and renewing the license itself also requires attesting to at least 4 ethics or professional conduct hours (§16-71-2(a)). The same hours can satisfy both at once (§16-71-33(b)), so it's 4 hours, not 4 + 4.

Sourcing note: Confirmed directly from the codified fee rule, not just the Board's own page: HAR §16-53-38 sets the restoration formula as the biennial renewal fee plus an equal penalty fee (paragraphs (7) and (11)), and HRS §26-9(o) separately requires any unpaid fee -- including the $100 biennial Compliance Resolution Fund fee under HAR §16-53-38(12) -- to be paid to restore a license. For an individual license: $52 renewal + $52 penalty + $100 Compliance Resolution Fund fee = $204. For a non-sole-proprietorship firm permit: $130 + $130 + $100 = $360. Sole-proprietorship firm permits owe no Compliance Resolution Fund fee under (12), so their total stops at $64 + $64 = $128. These published figures are the baseline for restoring within the same biennium; HAR §16-53-38(8) and HRS §466-8(c) add a further $20 recordkeeping fee for each full biennium your license was on forfeited status. (Last checked 2026-11-10.)